The Dutton record label initially built its reputation issuing audiophile-quality transfers from 78-rpm shellac discs recorded between 1920 and 1970. While the label has continued this avenue of activity, it also issues world-premiere recordings of little-known but deserving works by...

This recent release from Coviello Classics titled Swiss Aspects presents live recordings from concerts marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Argovia Philharmonic. Its subtitle reads Orchestral Music from Argovia 1945-1970. This sent me to Google maps where I discovered Argovia is one of the...

Virgil Thomson was a great force behind American music in the 20th Century. Not only was he a great composer, but an outspoken and intelligent voice for music. The Mother of Us All was the second opera he composed. The first, Four Saints in Three Acts, used an all Afro-American cast. The...

This release marks the fifth CD issued by Naxos dedicated entirely to the music of Alexandre Tansman and is the second of the composer’s piano music. Belgian pianist and contemporary music specialist Eliane Reyes performs both piano programs by this composer who, during his lifetime, was...

The cover of this Verso CD reads: Luis de los Cobos, complete orchestral works. Normally, you would expect a CD labeled this way to include a composer’s works for solo instruments with orchestra and perhaps even scores for chamber orchestra, but de los Cobos’ compositions in these...

Conductor Werner Andreas Albert conducts the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover in what appear to be the world premiere recordings of three gripping orchestral works by German composer Paul Graener (1872-1944). This release comes from cpo, a label with a penchant for bringing to light fascinating...

With the release of this second CD from Naxos of music for orchestra by Azerbaijani composer Kara Karayev, the current catalog has on offer three full programs of music by this fine composer. The previous Naxos release was of Karayev’s Symphony No. 3 and two tone poems; this new release...

This new album is the third in cpo’s survey of Kabalevsky’s orchestral works. The NDR RadioPhilharmonie has performed on each, and its the second conducted by Japanese conductor Eiji Oue. On this recording, we hear Kabalevsky’s Cello Concertos Nos. 1 & 2, magnificently...

In this program of rarely heard 20th century piano pieces by seven Hungarian composers, pianist Mariann Marczi performs over an hour of music that has factored prominently in her academic studies and performing career. The album takes its name from the opening work, Splinters, Op. 6/d by...

Guild Records has been proving their pudding of late by releasing exceptionally fine yet little known repertoire in quintessential performances. They do so again with ‘Le Piano Français’. Pianist Timon Altwegg with conductor Gilles Colliard and the Chamber Orchestra of Toulouse...

The three musicians of the Absolut Trio have been building a repertory around “rare finds and forgotten pieces,” and the three works they perform on this Musiques Suisses CD are absolutely in line with this objective. Coming from the early and mid-twentieth century, each of the...

This album of Norwegian music for string orchestra from Lawo Classics was released in the fall of 2013. I put off listening to it for several months, mostly because the opening piece on the program, Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite, Op. 40, is a work not really aligned to the...